smommer

My keyboard is also black, but if asked when i look at it i would say the keys are black, if i look closely however, they are more a light grey colour because of the reflection of white light from my monitor. I know this doesnt apply for the sky but could the reflections off black surfaces contribute towards what gives 'black' a percieved sense of colour. Another cool trick i have always liked is how Overhead projectors make the colour black, it is actually no signal with colour projected around it (e.g. black text on a white background), i always thought it was cool how you can get such a clear illusion of black on a whiteboard. A colleague of mine wrote an article about whether or not white is a colour in a computing journal last year. it would probably be of interest to you. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/dixa/papers/is-white-a-colour-2005/ smom

Do you mean that, if time for yourself ceases to exist upon death, and lets assume the universe is an open universe and will be here forever, then is it possible for all for all our particles that made us up to gather at the same place and we will wake up as though nothing has happened? I think probably yes, but as has already been pointed out this is infinitessimally small, and may be just as likely to come back as an onion or something like that. Does heizenbergs uncertainty principle have any sort of sway in this sort of thing too? i remember seeing a tv show by brian green on string theory and he gave examples (in the 'quantum cafe' for those who have seen it) that its just a probability that something exists the way it is. given an infinite amount of time for this, do the odds of something like this happening increase dramatically?

A few weeks back out of curiosity i sent off for a demo cd for one of these meditation cds you speak of, free of course. When it came i do have to admit i found the sounds when listened to in headphones did kind of have a strange effect on me. and left me feeling a bit more 'alert' afterwards, however i think this could have been for a few reasons, such as the relaxing nature sounds in the background, or the fact i was sitting comfortably in a dark room for 15 mins resting my brain. The cds creators claimed sending sound at different wavelengths aids communication between the two hemispheres of the brain, although i havent seen evidence of studies supporting this on this companies site. i remain a cynic as the CDs website generally uses a lot of pseudo scientific wording (and we all know how misleading that can be, eh creation scientists ) This is making reference to the work of Dr. Gerald Oster of Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York. (about which has already been linked by exeluc) other than that i havent really seen much research done in this area, if anyone has any links i can follow, i would appreciate it, i find this stuff quite interesting too.

well deserved congrats to all three of you.

not too sure on this one but "VM ware" may provide a simulation http://www.vmware.com/download this is available for 30 day trial, but dont know if it will emulate as far back as 8086. I used it to set up, secure and test virtual networks while i was a student. smom

are many people still using the protein folding software (folding@home) that you set up an SFN group for way back? i think i still have that running on one of my machines at work but cant remember now.

Aircraft wings work as the top side of the wing has a greater surface area than the underside of the wing (Square RAM-AIR parachutes work in the same way, theyre just inflatable wings). When air passes over and under the wing, lift is generated. A better description than i could write can be found here http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/home.html When air flows past an airplane wing, it breaks into two airstreams. The one that goes under the wing encounters the wing's surface, which acts as a ramp and pushes the air downward and forward. The air slows somewhat and its pressure increases. Forces between this lower airstream and the wing's undersurface provide some of the lift that supports the wing. But the airstream that goes over the wing has a complicated trip. First it encounters the leading edge of the wing and is pushed upward and forward. This air slows somewhat and its pressure increases. So far, this upper airstream isn't helpful to the plane because it pushes the plane backward. But the airstream then follows the curving upper surface of the wing because of a phenomenon known as the Coanda effect. The Coanda effect is a common behavior in fluids--viscosity and friction keep them flowing along surfaces as long as they don't have to turn too quickly. (The next time your coffee dribbles down the side of the pitcher when you poured too slowly, blame it on the Coanda effect.) Because of the Coanda effect, the upper airstream now has to bend inward to follow the wing's upper surface. This inward bending involves an inward acceleration that requires an inward force. That force appears as the result of a pressure imbalance between the ambient pressure far above the wing and a reduced pressure at the top surface of the wing. The Coanda effect is the result (i.e. air follows the wing's top surface) but air pressure is the means to achieve that result (i.e. a low pressure region must form above the wing in order for the airstream to arc inward and follow the plane's top surface). The low pressure region above the wing helps to support the plane because it allows air pressure below the wing to be more effective at lifting the wing. But this low pressure also causes the upper airstream to accelerate. With more pressure behind it than in front of it, the airstream accelerates--it's pushed forward by the pressure imbalance. Of course, the low pressure region doesn't last forever and the upper airstream has to decelerate as it approaches the wing's trailing edge--a complicated process that produces a small amount of turbulence on even the most carefully designed wing. In short, the curvature of the upper airstream gives rise to a drop in air pressure above the wing and the drop in air pressure above the wing causes a temporary increase in the speed of the upper airstream as it passes over much of the wing. So air needs to be travelling over the wing to provide the lift. If i got what you were saying right then what you are decribing is a bigger version of us running on a treadmill. we obviously remain stationary when this happens so there would be no air passing by us other than the wind that was blowing on that day. so no lift generated to get the airplane off the ground.

Hi, ive been thinking about signs, road signs / warning signs etc and how intuitive they are. Most signs afford some kind of meaning in the graphic they represent, for example a flammable sign is a flame, and irritant is a cross (implying, dont mess about with it). The picture has at least a partial meaning to the message it is trying to represent, i am stuck on why the "radioactive" sign is what it is, what is it meant to be and why? does anyone know? cheers Smommer

I agree, i havent been around here for too long but the posts i have seen by IMM have all been informative, respectful, well researched and well referenced. A unique trait in the religeon posts i have read so far.

I play it every now and then on the splitpaw server

Do you know the sample size of this galaxygirl? i remain a sceptic about all kinds of "lie detectors" and really dont buy the idea we can decide whether someone is telling the truth or not depending on the amount we sweat or our cutaneous reactions. Im also not really familiar with what "brain finger printing" is.

According to this: http://www.livejournal.com/users/jpicon/833962.html "Advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe." I wonder if this transcript was from a real empirical study Smommer

what about people who suffer from locked in syndrome, who have absolutely no way of communicating with the outside world? i know work has been done with brain body interfaces that allows limited interaction but this is still fairly recent

Hi all, I have a quesiton about how we measure vibration. I am developing a keypad that provides haptic feedback, for this i am using vibrator motors not too dissimilar from the vibrator motors you find in mobile phones and pagers. such as http://www.vibratormotor.com/4AL-01WA.html and http://www.sanyo.com/industrial/micro_motors/vibrator/downloads/4L-M-01-080.pdf I would need to include a metric for vibration in my study design when evaluating the suitability of such a device. In these specs it notes the motors RPM but this isnt actually a metric of vibration, e.g. amplitude and displacement. Is there a standard metric for measuring vibration? if so is there a way to calculate the vibration theoretically from the specs without the need to get the motors running under a high speed video camera and counting them? Perhaps im misunderstanding the specs but ive looked at a few and there doesnt appear to be a uniform representation of vibration.

It looks like a good idea to me, especially if people leave their computers on at work. That way they dont have to worry about power issues. Ive joined the group, i will also install it on a couple of machines at work as they are left online overnight anyway. Does anyone know if you can have two machines running under the same username concurrently or would i need to put different names in?

I have also had similar experiences to this but i think Xyph i probably on the right lines with this one. Ive also fallen asleep with the TV on and when the BBC flicks to the 24 hour news channel i have had some strange dreams related to what i see on the news later that day. Im not sure if any of you guys have seen any of those prank videos people have been putting on the net where they find a buddy who is fast asleep (usually in a car or something) then let out a terrifying scream, the person wakes up and joins in screaming before they even know whats going on. Some of them can be quite funny (except for the person being woken up, i guess). My point is, if your ideas are correct spencer, should the sleeping person not have woken up before people started screaming?

I attempted to simulate Araneus Diadematus. I also think Krink used this species to try and isolate the mathematical rules spiders apply during web synthesis in his netspinner project http://www.brics.dk/~krink/netSpinner/ . I used this type of spider as they were local to me and so i could observe them easily in the garden when they were creating webs. Their lifespan i believe is about 2 years. I may be wrong and i cant find any literature to back this claim up, i think i was told by my supervisor at the time. below is a quote from http://www.zoo.org/educate/fact_sheets/spiders/spiders.html What sort of time frame are you guys thinking you could observe evolution in an empirical experiment and what would you define as observed adaptation? I think this would be tricky to do in a realistic time frame. Simulation speeds things up but has its own problems and i dont think it can really prove any hypothesis, as the simulation would have to be near perfect.

The top UK universities such as Oxford or Cambridge demand top grades but as there is such a high number of applicants, they take interest in what is in your personal statement at the application stage then ask you to discuss these at interview. In the UK the admissions system is currently based on predicted grades if you are still studying, if these are low it is unlikely you will be offered a conditional place. You may also be asked to sit an entrance exam to allow them to further distinguish between the brightest pupils.

Hi, I am smommer, based in the UK. I love science and i guess learning as much as i can about the discipline is a hobby of mine. Im here to learn and take part in discussions i think i can contribute to. Hi everyone

Im afraid im not really familiar with bacteria either so cant really offer any suggestions on that front. Would the bacteria have to be "enemy bacteria"? Could this theory not be simulated at least in part by pitting a bacteria like representation against the elements of its environment when i was working on spider behaviour i didnt really treat spiders and flies as "enemies" competing with each other, more viewed the flies as an element of the spiders environment. Sorry i cant offer any suggestions on what behavioural or environmental traits to incorporate into a possible simulation, may take a bit of research. Anyone any ideas?

Good Question I once wrote a simulation that used genetic algorithms to simulate web building behaviour in spiders, using a webs ability to catch randomly generated flies as a fitness function. Ive always been interested in extending the algorithm further to give the flies a fighting chance to adapt and get an arms race going. Of course simulations of this nature are limited as only a limited number of environmental and biological factors can be simulated with the computing power we have available. It may be easier to simulate bacteria (i havent tried).

I dont believe this is a dangerous idea at all, without wishing to get into a creationism debate, there is observable evidence that lends credit to Darwins theories. As for religeon, people can believe what they want. I dont believe its the work of Darwin that is dangerous.